The Ministry of Environment in Korea Issued Draft List of 1st Batch of Chemical Substance for Registration Under K-REACH

Original Article by Grace Chen from CIRS

October 31st 2014, the Ministry of Environment (MoE) in Korea published the 1st batch of substances that subject to K-REACH. There are now 518 kinds of chemical substances on the draft list in total. It is said that the final version of this list is planned to be released in early 2015 and all chemical substances on the list would be registered within 3 years since then. According to Korean MoE, around 2000 types of existing chemical substances are expected to be registered by 2020.

Both Korean and English version of the draft list are available now. K-REACH requires that the existing substances which are manufactured or imported more than 1ton/year in Korea have to be registered in the buffer period. Foreign corporations can entrust qualified Only Representative (OR) with registration work.

CIRS advises that enterprises who have products exported to Korea take active effort to follow the updates on the list of existing chemical substances, in order to make a full preparation for registration. In addition, MoE in Korea is drafting a guidance document for chemical registration, which anticipated to be published at the end of this year.